Appeal No. 98-1530
Application No. 08/492,590
The second rejection of the three independent claims is
based upon Habern in view of Schenck. The deficiencies in
each of these references, individually, have been discussed
above. In this rejection, the examiner’s position is that, as
to the three independent claims, Habern discloses all of the
required subject matter except for specifying that the crane
is “a typical crane having a vertically swinging boom”
(Answer, page 5). The examiner also is of the view that
Habern teaches maintaining a portion of the winch line in the
specified known orientation by virtue of the fact that the
reference discloses a grooved guide (214) in Figure 13
(Answer, page 5). In our opinion, this rejection also is
fatally defective. The first reason for reaching this
conclusion is that neither reference discloses means for
measuring, in two mutually perpendicular directions, the
components of a load attached to the sheave, a feature that is
required in all of the claims. Second, even taking the
examiner’s statements regarding the Habern chain guide means
at face value, we are not persuaded by the explanation offered
by the examiner on page 6 of the Answer that suggestion exists
for combining the references in the manner proposed or that,
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